


Low Tides

by natodiangelo



Category: Gintama
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, as well as characters, gender-neutral pronouns for Yagyuu Kyuubei, possible angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 20:33:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13372545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natodiangelo/pseuds/natodiangelo
Summary: Otae picks up a castaway she knew a lifetime ago.





	Low Tides

**Author's Note:**

> first of all, i want to give a HUGE thanks to [arashian155](http://arashian155.tumblr.com/) bc without them this probably wouldn't have happened at all. thank you so much for letting me bounce ideas off of you!! and for inputting your own ideas!! 
> 
> second, this is my first big fic for 2018 and im hoping itll go well!! let me know what you guys think and hopefully the second chapter will be up soon!!

The sun shines bright overhead, sultry heat permeating the briny air. The water glistens with it’s reflection and turns the horizon into a shimmer of blue. The sea is calm today, quiet, lapping softly at the smooth, fine wood of the ship. Seagulls pass far above, crying out at the never ending expanse of sky and sea.

Otae stands at the helm of the _Koudoukan_ , a ship passed to her from her father. Long hair held tight under the brim of a wide hat – also once her fathers, bleached from the sun and stained with the scent of his cologne – she adjusts her hold on the wheel and scours the horizon.

Deck hands scurry across the main deck. Sails are adjusted, turned to catch the most wind; the hand in the crow’s nest carefully watches the waters.

Otae calls over the helmsman to take over as she walks along the bulwark. Each one of her crew call a greeting as she passes them by, one that she returns with a nod of her head. When she reaches the bow she stops and looks out over the top of the detailed beakhead that leads them everywhere they go.

“Pretty day, isn’t it?”

She turns her gaze to the side, glancing idly at Shinpachi and then back over the water.

“It is.”

“Reminds me of the summers when we were little,” Shinpachi continues. “When dad would take us out and we’d lay here and watch the clouds pass.”

She remembers those times – clearly, in fact, remembers them like they were yesterday. The salty wind and the bright glare of the sun in her eyes. She remembers pointing out shapes in the sky above them, remembers how small Shinpachi was back then. She can hear her father’s voice in her head calling them for lunch, and the two of them stumbling over each other to get there first.

“Do you remember that?” Shinpachi asks her.

“That was so long ago,” She replies, “Of course not.”

Shinpachi laughs and the wind brushes through his hair, sending it up in a flare of black. “I suppose you wouldn’t remember.”

Their father died when Otae was still young. Small and naïve and impressionable, she boarded the ship left to them and did the best she could to make a living. It’s been many, many years since then – more than she can count, more than she wants to know – and this ship has long since become their home. But time hasn’t yet healed the anger in her heart over her father’s death.

He was murdered.

Slain by cruel, uncaring hands and left to drift to the bottom of the ocean. The ship – broken and dilapidated – was returned to her by what crew remained, and with the small funds left to her she got it repaired and departed.

She is now, as her father once was, a pirate.

She isn’t exactly the _kill everyone and loot the bodies_ kind. She finds wrecks and pilfers their supplies, goes to ports and offers passage to travelers willing to pay. When attacked, of course, when other pirates are misled by her patched sails and dare to set their sights on whatever treasure might be hidden beneath deck, she fights.

The ships will saddle up next to each other and Otae will swing across the gap, demolishing the enemy with a sword she took from a pile of wood that was once a ship, and Shinpachi will bellow out orders and the rest of the crew will shove the enemy over the lip of the ship. Then, Otae will take what she wants from the cargo and they’ll be on their way.

There’s only one thing she won’t do: trade with Edo’s main ports, those that the Imperial Navy frequent.

Above her, a whistle sounds; then, a direction. “Port!”

“What’s happening?” She asks as Shinpachi runs to the bulwark. “Something in the water?”

“Someone.” Shinpachi says breathlessly. “There’s someone down there!”

And indeed, as she runs up behind him and peers over the edge and into the blue, she can see a body, bobbing with the flow of the ride, black hair sprawled across the waves. The thing that catches her eye, however, is not their pallid skin or the lifeless way their body moves in the water – it’s the swath of pale silk that sticks to them and the design she can see embroidered in gold.

“We have to save them!” Shinpachi says, and she turns to him with a hard look.

“No.”

Shinpachi blinks, whips his head around to look at her, agape. “N- no? What do you mean?”

She looks out at the person again, their body weightless to the sea. “Do you see their clothes?” She asks, but Shinpachi does not follow her gaze. “They are one of _them_. I won’t help.” She turns away.

“Otae-“

“You can’t convince me to change my mind, Shinpachi.”

Something in his face changes – hardens, solidifies – and for a moment he looks so reminiscent of their father that it takes her aback. His jaw sets and his brow furrows and for only a second she thinks he might hit her, and she readies herself for the brunt, sets her stance – but it never comes. He moves his gaze toward the crew that had accumulated at the bulwark, and takes a few steps toward them.

“Ready a lifeboat,” He says, commanding attention. “Pull the person out of the water.”

“Shinpachi-“

“I’m sorry,” He interrupts. “But I can’t let someone die like this. No matter who they are.”

Otae realizes – not for the first time, exactly, and not in the way that one realizes something previously beyond their belief; more in a way that a long-known truth finally condenses in one’s mind – that Shinpachi has grown and healed and perhaps she does not know as much as she had thought.

She watches as the life boat is lowered and the person is hauled from the water, and she watches the boat rise and water stream off its sides until it is finally level with the edge of the ship.

“Are they alive?” She asks, as the crew pulls the person from the boat. One person, who had stooped down to check for a pulse, gives the reply.

“Barely,” they say, but it’s good enough for Shinpachi, who starts to give orders for their care.

“Do what you have to to heal them,” She says, and Shinpachi sends her a desperately hopeful look. “But once they’re stable, tie them up. I’m taking no chances until I talk to them myself.”

 

Kyuubei takes ages to wake.

It’s a slow process, gradually becoming aware of their body, and gradually realizing the pain in their muscles. Sounds filter through the grog eventually, loud voices that yell back and forth unintelligibly, and then, in a movement that takes more energy than they’d like to admit, they open their eyes.

And immediately close them again.

It’s _bright_ – overpassing any colors, any shapes. Nothing more than that had a chance to be registered.

Carefully, they attempt to open their eyes again, bracing themselves. For a moment, all they can see is blue – a never-ending blue sky above them, the dark edge of the horizon where sky meets sea.

Then, the rest of the world comes into focus.

They’re on a ship – broad, sturdy, the wood scuffed from countless steps but scrubbed clean. People walk back and forth in front of Kyuubei, but none may them any mind. A tall mast rises up from behind them – they crane their neck to look up at it, traces the complicated web of ropes that hold the sails up and wonders with awe how long tit took to make.

A shadow shifts and lays itself over Kyuubei, and they bring their attention to it’s origin.

And freeze.

Because – because they _know_ this person, recognize her like the would their own face – her brown hair, her smooth face, the slant of her eyes –

Otae.

“Otae.” Kyuubei says, and the flicker of confusion in her eyes would be carefully hidden if it weren’t directed at themself.

“How do you know my name?” She asks, but before Kyuubei is given a chance to respond another person interrupts.

“Otae!” The person calls, and their straight black hair looks familiar to Kyuubei, but they can’t quite place a name to their face. The person pauses as they approach Otae, voice going lower. “They’re awake.”

“Perhaps for longer than he thought,” Otae confirms, before kneeling in front of Kyuubei. “Shinpachi,” She says, obviously still directed at the other person despite her careful gaze at Kyuubei. “Watch the bow.”

“But-“

“Shinpachi.”

Kyuubei can remember them now – places him as Otae’s younger brother, though they can’t remember much about him beside his soft compassion and quiet enthusiasm. They watch Shinpachi slink away before Otae pulls their attention.

“I’m going to ask you again,” She says, and Kyuubei notices a scar across her cheek that wasn’t there all those years ago. “How do you know my name?”

It occurs to Kyuubei then that Otae might not remember them. Or, perhaps, she doesn’t recognize them – too many years to count have past since Otae left Kyuubei behind, and though Kyuubei spent just as many years with Otae’s face behind their closed eyes they can’t say that it was the same for Otae.

They stare up at her face for a moment, eyes tracing the curves of her jaw and the harsh bend of her frown, and realize – in a way that one realizing something completely obvious, with slight embarrassment – that Otae has changed in ways they can’t comprehend.

“You don’t remember me?” They ask at last, and the furrow of Otae’s brow grows stronger.

“Who are you?”

“Yagyuu Kyuubei.”

Kyuubei expects recognition – expects Otae to smile, welcome them aboard with open arms. Perhaps they’d reminisce together, talk over tea of their shared childhood, of the adventures they’d partaken in; expects for a long recount of Otae’s life since, battles and journeys and everything in between.

They don’t expect a sword drawn faster than lightning and placed with deadly accuracy by their throat.

“Don’t joke with me.” She says, and now, justly, it is Kyuubei’s turn for confusion.

“I am not joking.”

“How did you learn that name?”

“It is my own.”

The wicked edge of the blade digs ever so slightly into their skin; blood, or perhaps sweat, drips down their neck.

“Prove it.”

“I have a birthmark on my lower back,” They say without hesitation. “Yours is on your leg. Your favorite flower is peony. As children we used to walk to the creek and lay on the grass and watch the clouds. You would complain about your father always being gone. I was the one who taught you to sword fight. We-“

“Stop.”

Kyuubei can’t tell what Otae’s thinking, and that, more than anything that’s happened, is the most concerning. So far apart they’ve grown that Kyuubei doesn’t know what Otae feels when her face is knitted and her lips pursed, doesn’t know whether to speak or act or do nothing at all.

Then, without explanation, Otae stands and walks away.

“Otae?” They call after her, but she doesn’t turn, walking toward the bow with a steady gait.

They lean back against the mast and look out at the blue sky.


End file.
